As a fellow at Yale School of Medicine (YSM), David Assis, MD, realized that the high-level training he was receiving would benefit his medical career. So when the opportunity arose to become the fellowship program director in his specialty of digestive diseases, he decided to give back.
An associate professor (digestive diseases) in YSM’s Department of Internal Medicine, Assis was appointed director of the digestive diseases fellowship program in July 2021. “I was always very proud of the training I got here,” Assis said. “Having been a fellow here and working with fellows ever since, my goal is to try to help others get that same career benefit and clinical training.”
Assis’ clinical and translational research interests are in autoimmune and cholestatic liver diseases. After his residency at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, he completed two fellowships at Yale—one in gastroenterology and hepatology in 2012, and a transplant hepatology fellowship in 2013. His own research and clinical experiences at Yale, he says, inspired his interest in assuming an active role in the fellowship program.
“My principal interest is to leverage the immense talent we have at Yale with our faculty and our academic research programs with the amazing energy that fellows bring with them in order to develop our clinical and research missions while generating a critical spark that will motivate our fellows to devote themselves to this rewarding field for decades to come.”
In addition to Dr. Assis, who serves as fellowship program director, the fellowship leadership team now also includes three associate program directors with a dedicated focus on key aspects of the program including Dr. Jill Deutsch (outpatient clinic experience), Dr. Kenneth Hung (inpatient experience), and Dr. Vikas Gupta (research experience).
Currently, there are four options within the digestive diseases fellowship program. The GI and hepatology fellowship is a three-year training program in which some fellows pursue a clinical track and some pursue a research track. Fourth-year fellowships include one in transplant hepatology and one in advanced endoscopy. A new fourth-year fellowship in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) has just been established, with the first fellow scheduled to start in July.
New IBD Fellowship
Badr Al Bawardy, MD, assistant professor, (digestive diseases) is the director of a new IBD fellowship, which falls under the umbrella of the digestive diseases fellowship program that Assis oversees.
Before coming to Yale, Al Bawardy completed a dedicated IBD fellowship at Mayo Clinic and says it made a significant impact on his clinical practice and also on his research and teaching capabilities.
Recent advances in the understanding of IBD justified the need for a fellowship in the specialty, said Al Bawardy.
“Our understanding of the disease keeps improving and there's a lot of innovation in terms of new and upcoming treatment strategies, so it's a very rapidly evolving field,” he says. “And with that, one has to keep up with the latest [research and innovations] to provide optimal patient care. Therefore, a dedicated year of training focused on inflammatory bowel disease is very important.”
“This is an extra year that's done after a general gastroenterology fellowship. The purpose of the fellowship is to train a board-eligible/certified gastroenterologist into taking care of patients with inflammatory bowel disease.”
The IBD fellow will be exposed to the different disciplines involved in the care of the IBD patient including pathology, radiology and colorectal surgery. The fellow will play an important role in providing care in a multidisciplinary model.
The IBD fellow will be trained in both inpatient management and outpatient IBD management. “It is clinical training, but it's also academic training, so there's going to be research involved in that one year [as well as] opportunities to teach the general gastroenterology fellows and even residents about inflammatory bowel disease.”
“We want our graduating fellows to be well-rounded in not only the basics, but also the complex care of the patient with IBD,while also having exposure to research opportunities and mentorship to help them propel an IBD focused academic career.”
Since forming one of the nation’s first sections of hepatology and then gastroenterology over 50 years ago, Yale’s Section of Digestive Diseases has had an enduring impact on research and clinical care in gastrointestinal and liver disorders. To learn more about their work, visit Digestive Diseases.